[p. 269]
|269| speaking ill of others, the recounting of such things as are detrimental to the honour of a third party and are not in and for themselves manifest to those who recount them. It is wont to happen in disapproving zeal against immoral actions, also with the addition that one cannot vouch for the tales as certain and wants to have said nothing. But in this case it is bound up with dishonesty, in actually spreading through the deed the tales which one pretends not to want to spread, and in that other with hypocrisy, in wanting to speak morally and actually acting evilly.
Explanation. Hypocrisy consists in that human beings act evilly, but give themselves the appearance towards others of having a good intention, of having wanted to do something good. The external action, however, is not different from the inner. With an evil deed the intention too has essentially been evil and not good. It may be the case that the man wanted to attain something good or at least permitted. But one cannot in doing so want to make what is in and for itself evil the means to something good. The purpose or intention does not sanctify the means. The moral principle goes chiefly to the disposition or to the intention. But it is just as essential that not only the intention but also the action is good. – Likewise man must not persuade himself that in the common acting of individual life he has important, excellent intentions. Just as man on the one hand gladly attributes good intentions to his own actions and seeks to make his actions, unimportant in and for themselves, great through reflections, so it happens conversely towards others that he wants to ascribe something evil, through a self-interested intention, to great or at least good actions of others.
§ 65
The disposition to harm others with knowledge and will is evil. The disposition which allows itself, out of weakness in the face of its inclination, to violate duties towards others,
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